A New World, an immersive game experience

Chapter 285: Curiosity and discovery

This is actually so pretty. Was the first thing going through his mind as he looked as the mists move around, the flame looking more ethereal than normal. As if he could see through it, but yet he couldn't.

Unfortunately, he couldn't keep it up for long, after five seconds of admiring the view he lost control of Mana Examination and was left staring at a normal Floga. Sighing Eldrian realized he had started admiring the view too much.

I have to get more used to it.? Eldrian realized as he repeated the same process, but this time with Nidia. Things happening much like before, only the blue being attached to his spell and the red chased away.

I wonder what the others look like.? Eldrian thought after again the spell module of Mana Examination slipped in his mind. So he continued to use Tier 0 spells while casting it, finding this practice far more efficient than simply trying to cast it alone.

It took him a couple of tries before he managed to cast the Tier 0 spells he wasn't so used to. But after half an hour the results started becoming clear.

He found that when casting Gi, the earth spell which caused dirt to slowly pile up onto itself, that there seemed to be no external mana; or rather no mist. Eldrian felt this was unlikely and that rather the mana was hidden from his view in the earth itself.

The wind spell, Anemos, simply caused the white-green mist to become excited. Causing all of it to move slightly faster than before.? Seeing this Eldrian realized it wasn't the same as Ischyros Anemos, the Tier 2 variant. He confirmed this after recasting the Tier 0.

On the recast he didn't use Mana Examination, instead, he tried to follow the mana on his own. In doing so he realized that his mana did not change with this spell. It felt just like it did when he first sent it out.

After pondering about the meaning of this, Eldrian repeated the process with Aeraki, The Tier 1 variant. He normally used it when he was in an enclosed area and it started becoming warm, as such he was actually quite used to the spell. He had even managed to add a few water elements into it.

He hadn't done it through changing the spell, but rather through changing what he sent into it. In doing so he couldn't add much, probably less than 5% of the total mana he sent out. Still, it caused the air to be cooler, like a refreshing sea breeze.

Focusing on his mana, he cast the spell. Eldrian found that this time the mana did change. Though the change was nowhere near as drastic as for the Tier 2 variant. The mana became more energetic but other than that Eldrian couldn't feel anything else being different.

He really wanted to use Mana Examination to see what was happening, but he knew he couldn't accomplish that yet.

I wonder how Fos and Skia will look through Mana Examination. Eldrian thought after letting go of his curiosity on wind magic; for now.

He knew that he would need hours of practice with both Ischyros Anemos and Mana Examination to be able to use both at the same time. Heck, he had yet to try dual cast two Tier 1 spells, which Eldrian quickly realized, he should probably do first.

He also felt like he had done enough progress for today and didn't want to just continue practicing. When he thought of the server announcement Eldrian felt this was especially true. Instead, he wanted to rather sate his curiosity about things now.

Casting Fos, which he was extremely comfortable with as it was often his night light, Eldrian admired the new type of mist appearing. It was far less in quantity and it was almost invisible, but with Fos gathering the nearby elements he could finally see it. However, the initial cast was what truly informed him to look out for it.

A very light, vague yellow was slowly moving towards the small ball of light. Looking at it Eldrian turned to look at other places, finding that he could also see this mist there too. It was just so vague that the other mists totally overshone it.

Repeating it with Skia took a few tries as Eldrian had almost never cast it after learning the Tier 0 darkness spell. When he finally succeeded he found that unlike all the others, the ball of darkness he had summoned was losing mana. A black mist devoid of light being pulled from his spell and disappearing into the surroundings.

That's interesting, Eldrian thought, finally casting Anthos, only to find as he suspected that there was no mana flowing anywhere. He had felt this would happen since he was casting the spell on himself. His mana didn't even need to leave his body.

Looking around he saw one of the goat-like creatures nearby. With a smile Eldrian quickly walked closer to the animal. Casting Anthos on it as soon as he was five meters from it. As he did he saw a light green mist moving from him to the animal. Unlike all the others, it did not gather at a certain point.

Though this took a couple of tries for Eldrian to confirm. He had to keep his distance from the animal or it would run, and all the other mists filling the surroundings certainly didn't help in making it easy to see what happened.

Finally he saw that his light green mist seemed to spread around the animal. Going into it from all directions, and as it did this, about half of the mist changed into a different mist. One Eldrian realized as the color for raw mana.

Oh! That is interesting, but it makes sense. The spell gives energy, including mana, and raw mana is probably the only mana someone can take in from a spell. Or easiest. Eldrian thought, now curious what the mana in others looked like. So he decided to check just that.

Eldrian started with the animals, going back to Magic Inspection, he cast the spell in its complex version. This caused his viewing time to just be ten to twenty seconds, but Eldrian knew he needed the practice, so he sucked it up and continued.

The mana appeared like a second skin, right under their coats. Lightly shining through. Like a soft glowing mist covering them head to toe. Making it almost seem like they would glow in the dark, which caused Eldrian to wonder if the spell might work for stealth missions.

That would be freaking OP!? Eldrian thought, quickly losing focus and needing to recast the spell thanks to that.

The goat-like animals all had the soft white of raw mana flowing through them. Along with a bit of light green, which Eldrian now knew was the nature element. A few of the animals had other types of mana also flowing in them, but this was normally far less than the other two. It also seemed to be unstable.

Eldrian also realized that the mana covering their entire body was completely different from his own case, where his mana flowed from his heart to his limbs and head.

Moving on Eldrian enjoyed a walk through the grassland and fields, casually using Magic Inspection and looking at everything and everyone. He was slightly disappointed that it didn't seem to work on plants, which he only realized when a field of grain-like crops nearly stopped him from seeing the people inside of it.

For the most part, Eldrian found that everyone else's mana was just below their chest, just above their stomachs. Right where the diaphragm was situated. Their raw mana would accumulate there, flowing in a circle. Sometimes, but this seemed to happen rarely, there would be a flare of some other color coming to life. Though most of the time it would stay a soft white.

Eldrian was so absorbed in his observation that he didn't even realize he had walked all the way back to the North gate. Looking at the ramp, a smile grew as he thought back to when he first arrived.

So much has happened in so little time. Not even a month... Seeing the guards moving about on top of the wall, Eldrian became curious what their mana would look like. Those tending the fields were the weakest in the fort, and while they all could cast Tier 0 spells, most of them weren't even Tier 1.

Unfortunately, those atop the wall were too far for him to use Magic Inspection on, while it had a decent range, the wall itself was twenty meters high. Looking around Eldrian saw the gatehouse just a bit off, and a few guards standing guard next to the ramp.

Heading over Eldrian didn't want to seem suspicious, he knew what he was doing was considered unethical. The NPCs viewed it similar to spying, but really they thought of it more like peeping.

If you didn't have their permission to use Magic Inspection, and 'inspect' them, then they would be quite cross at your action. This was even worse than using Observe, as that was just considered spying.

Trying to be casual Eldrian kept to the road and simply walked past, turning to greet the guards when he was close enough for Magic Inspection to show him their mana.